5 ms·

That's a great story. How would you have fixed it without having to find another channel to transmit over? Could the plugin sense the character's condition and

by markbnj 12y ago

That's a great story. How would you have fixed it without having to find another channel to transmit over? Could the plugin sense the character's condition and delay until it abated?

lmm 12y ago
The transform looks fairly simple; just approach it the same way you do error-correction (i.e. reed-solomon), find vectors of characters that are far apart in phase space and use them rather than sending messages directly.
- masklinn 12y ago
  ECC's way overkill, just use a CRC and cancel the exchange if users are drunk.
StefanKarpinski 12y ago
Error correcting codes?
yuliyp 12y ago
Convert to hex, replace c with g. That avoids the ...hic and s->sh transforms
Brandon0 12y ago
I would have either just trimmed the ... hic from the received text (if there was only one string causing problems), or maybe even better would be to use control codes to signal the beginning and end of the data.
- ryeguy 12y ago
  it looks like it actually transforms the message too, not just adds "..hic"
Serow225 12y ago
For detection, have the receiver echo back and check that sent == received.
- netrus 12y ago
  But what if both are drunk?!
  - ajanuary 12y ago
    If the drunk transformation is 's' -> 'sh' Sender sends 's' Receiver receives 'sh' Receiver sends back 'sh' Sender receives 'shh', compares it to the 's' it thought it sent, and correctly deduces something went wrong in the communication. It is overzealous in that it would fail if the sender wasn't drunk but the receiver was.
- wingerlang 12y ago
  But if the reciever echoes "sho" (drunken "so") that would just be "sho" again wouldn't it?
  - ajanuary 12y ago
    Server sends 'so' Receiver receives 'sho' Receiver sends back 'sho' Sender receives 'sho', compares it to the 'so' it thought it sent, and correctly deduces something went wrong in the communication.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
Send a known-good line to test for it. "FriendnetStart: Hello, I am speaking normally and am not drunk," as the first message. If the application sees anything but that as the first message it should assume drunk and retry in an hour. Or implement a checksum at the end of every line. I imagine he also had issues with the profanity filter as well. Some usernames may set it off if they have a string of characters in them like username "Breshith," which would set off the filter for the text "shit."
- tgarv 12y ago
  The character could possibly become drunk immediately after sending the "I am not drunk" message, so you'd need to check if the character was still not drunk after sending the FriendNet messages. But assuming that drunkenness lasts much longer than it takes to send the FriendNet messages, you could be sure that if the character was not drunk before and after, then the messages in between were also valid.
  - masklinn 12y ago
    > so you'd need to check if the character was still not drunk after sending the FriendNet messages Just send a checksum with the message.
    - leorocky 12y ago
      Yes this would work, even though the message could get garbled including the checksum, you make the first set of characters be a checksum for the rest. If the checksum or message became compromised it would fail validation. This is the best solution so far. Send it with every message.
      - MasterScrat 12y ago
        Or use error-correcting codes so you can get your list accross even if you're drunk :D
ktsmith 12y ago
WoW Patch 1.12 released in August of 2006 added a hidden channel for add-on communication that didn't suffer from the drunken text transform. FriendNet was in use and updated well after that patch was released but to the best of my knowledge never moved communication to that channel. Source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.12 http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.12 New API Functions Add-ons can send hidden chat messages to players in the party, raid or guild, using SendAddonMessage("prefix", "message", "PARTY"|"RAID"|"GUILD"|"BATTLEGROUND").
cpeterso 12y ago
The addon should send a checksum so the receiving end can detect any unexpected changes. Also, the addon should just avoid sending when the character is drunk.
ajanuary 12y ago
Add a checksum that the client uses the validate the message.
ricree 12y ago
If I'm remembering correctly, only certain characters get transformed. So maybe you could use Huffman coding to map the text into a safe character set before you sent it. (might still have to strip out unacceptable characters to get rid of the ...hic)
armada651 12y ago
Please let me know when you guys figure this one out. I always wanted to know the best way to flawlessly communicate with friends while drunk.
tcgv 12y ago
What about encoding messages with numbers, and then filtering the letters that are added to the message when you are drunk at the receiver side, just before decoding it, would that work?

by markbnj 12y ago

That's a great story. How would you have fixed it without having to find another channel to transmit over? Could the plugin sense the character's condition and delay until it abated?

lmm 12y ago

The transform looks fairly simple; just approach it the same way you do error-correction (i.e. reed-solomon), find vectors of characters that are far apart in phase space and use them rather than sending messages directly.

masklinn 12y ago
ECC's way overkill, just use a CRC and cancel the exchange if users are drunk.

StefanKarpinski 12y ago

Error correcting codes?

yuliyp 12y ago

Convert to hex, replace c with g. That avoids the ...hic and s->sh transforms

Brandon0 12y ago

I would have either just trimmed the ... hic from the received text (if there was only one string causing problems), or maybe even better would be to use control codes to signal the beginning and end of the data.

ryeguy 12y ago
it looks like it actually transforms the message too, not just adds "..hic"

Serow225 12y ago

For detection, have the receiver echo back and check that sent == received.

netrus 12y ago
But what if both are drunk?!
- ajanuary 12y ago
  If the drunk transformation is 's' -> 'sh' Sender sends 's' Receiver receives 'sh' Receiver sends back 'sh' Sender receives 'shh', compares it to the 's' it thought it sent, and correctly deduces something went wrong in the communication. It is overzealous in that it would fail if the sender wasn't drunk but the receiver was.
wingerlang 12y ago
But if the reciever echoes "sho" (drunken "so") that would just be "sho" again wouldn't it?
- ajanuary 12y ago
  Server sends 'so' Receiver receives 'sho' Receiver sends back 'sho' Sender receives 'sho', compares it to the 'so' it thought it sent, and correctly deduces something went wrong in the communication.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

Send a known-good line to test for it. "FriendnetStart: Hello, I am speaking normally and am not drunk," as the first message. If the application sees anything but that as the first message it should assume drunk and retry in an hour. Or implement a checksum at the end of every line. I imagine he also had issues with the profanity filter as well. Some usernames may set it off if they have a string of characters in them like username "Breshith," which would set off the filter for the text "shit."

tgarv 12y ago
The character could possibly become drunk immediately after sending the "I am not drunk" message, so you'd need to check if the character was still not drunk after sending the FriendNet messages. But assuming that drunkenness lasts much longer than it takes to send the FriendNet messages, you could be sure that if the character was not drunk before and after, then the messages in between were also valid.
- masklinn 12y ago
  > so you'd need to check if the character was still not drunk after sending the FriendNet messages Just send a checksum with the message.
  - leorocky 12y ago
    Yes this would work, even though the message could get garbled including the checksum, you make the first set of characters be a checksum for the rest. If the checksum or message became compromised it would fail validation. This is the best solution so far. Send it with every message.
    - MasterScrat 12y ago
      Or use error-correcting codes so you can get your list accross even if you're drunk :D

ktsmith 12y ago

WoW Patch 1.12 released in August of 2006 added a hidden channel for add-on communication that didn't suffer from the drunken text transform. FriendNet was in use and updated well after that patch was released but to the best of my knowledge never moved communication to that channel. Source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.12 http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.12 New API Functions Add-ons can send hidden chat messages to players in the party, raid or guild, using SendAddonMessage("prefix", "message", "PARTY"|"RAID"|"GUILD"|"BATTLEGROUND").

cpeterso 12y ago

The addon should send a checksum so the receiving end can detect any unexpected changes. Also, the addon should just avoid sending when the character is drunk.

ajanuary 12y ago

Add a checksum that the client uses the validate the message.

ricree 12y ago

If I'm remembering correctly, only certain characters get transformed. So maybe you could use Huffman coding to map the text into a safe character set before you sent it. (might still have to strip out unacceptable characters to get rid of the ...hic)

armada651 12y ago

Please let me know when you guys figure this one out. I always wanted to know the best way to flawlessly communicate with friends while drunk.

tcgv 12y ago

What about encoding messages with numbers, and then filtering the letters that are added to the message when you are drunk at the receiver side, just before decoding it, would that work?